


We Made a Place to Sweat

by Fallynleaf



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Camping, First Time, Fuck Or Die, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-08
Updated: 2014-09-08
Packaged: 2018-02-16 16:10:46
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,747
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2276139
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fallynleaf/pseuds/Fallynleaf
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There was really only one way for Sam and Dean to satisfy the conditions of the curse without spreading it to anyone else.</p>
            </blockquote>





	We Made a Place to Sweat

**Author's Note:**

> The title comes from the song "Smoke on the Water" by Deep Purple.

It was St. John's Eve, and Dean and Sam were gathering rocks and branches to start a fire. It didn't need to be a big one, not to destroy the small envelope Dean clutched grimly in one hand, and not even to keep away demons like the lore for the fading holiday said. But Dean thought they could make it a good-sized fire, anyways, since they were going to be staying here all night. The holiday was just a coincidence.

"She really got us," Dean said with a hard laugh. "That son-of-a-bitch got us good." He tossed a small twig into the circle of rocks. "Never even knew magical STD's existed. That's just _awesome_."

"If we destroy the envelope and just camp out here for a few days on our own, it won't be able to spread," Sam said. "Not if we don't touch anyone else. The shelf-life on this thing's like two nights and a day. And once the envelope's gone, it'll be over for good."

"Why did I break the seal on that damn envelope?" Dean groaned. "And why didn't you stop me from handing it over to you? We were so freaking _stupid_."

"We thought the letter was evidence, remember?" Sam said. "It made sense at the time."

"Yeah, well? You know what doesn't make sense? Magically appearing tramp stamps that are _contagious_." Dean twisted around, eyeing the offending patch of skin on his back. "Magic, contagious tramp stamps that will kill you if you don't have sex before the sunrise after contacting them. Freaking _awesome_."

They both stood there, wild grass waving all around them, a clear sky rising pink and orange and muted blue through the silhouettes of trees that edged the nearby forest.

"It's going to end with us, Dean," Sam said. "Whatever happens tonight, whatever this thing makes us do, there's no one else around for miles who could get hurt by it."

"No one but the two of us." Dean stared out over the field, listening to the sound of insects and birds and other wildlife, already knowing that there's no way he'd be falling asleep at night. Not with that racket, he won't. Grumbling, he crouched down and started to set up the fire. He wanted to just burn the envelope already and get that part of this shitty impromptu camping trip over with.

The flames crackled as they started to take to the crumpled up newspaper and leapt onto the smaller branches, crawling up and climbing higher in a blazing orange that clung to the dry logs and coughed up a deep, woodsy smell with the thin trail of smoke. Dean watched it, because it was easier than watching Sam.

"Are you going to bless it, or whatever?" Dean asked Sam. "Before we toss the damn letter into it?"

Sam dug a book out of his duffel. Flipped through the pages, angled it down so that he could read by firelight. He started to read out loud, his voice low and practiced, taking care to not stumble over the words. After he finished, he tossed a pinch of salt into the fire, and the whole thing flared brighter, just for a second. Presumably, that meant the pre-ritual was complete.

Dean reached out and dropped the envelope into the fire with glee. It hissed as it burned. Then the fire turned bright emerald.

"That's Floo powder green," Sam commented. Dean had no idea what that meant. He guessed it probably wasn't helpful.

After the envelope curled up in a last brown-green flake of soon-to-be ash, the fire went orange again, and Dean relaxed a little. "Well, that's done with," Dean said. He sat down on the ground beside the fire. "Glad there's no mosquitoes here, or we would be so boned, dude."

"Yeah," Sam agreed. "I guess there's nothing really to do now besides wait."

"Yep." Dean glanced up from the flames, and found that the stars were already pretty clear in the sky, though it wasn't fully dark yet.

Sam rustled around with something, and then he stepped over and had a large blanket in his arms, plus something else that Dean couldn't quite make out. Sam spread the blanket on the ground, then he kicked off his shoes and sat on it.

"Hey, no fair. You've got a blanket and you're not sharing," Dean said, nudging Sam's leg with his foot.

"Take off your shoes and dust off your ass, and you can sit here, too," Sam said.

Dean stood up and did so, then plopped down right beside Sam and curled his toes into the thick, scratchy wool.

There was the crack and hiss of a bottle opening. Dean glanced over and watched Sam lift something to his lips and take a swig from it. "Want some beer?" Sam asked, afterwards.

"Hand me one, will you?" Dean asked.

"This is the only one left, Dean," Sam said. "You forgot to pick up another six-pack last time we stopped for gas. So this is all we've got."

"Gimme that, then," Dean said, reaching over to snatch it out of Sam's hands. He tipped it back and took several big sips, then handed it back.

They passed it back and forth between them for a short while, trading swigs. It didn't take long before Dean lifted the bottle to his lips and found it empty. He frowned, then leaned over and set it beside his shoes to collect later.

"I wonder when the mojo's going to hit," Dean said. "I haven't felt anything yet."

"Yeah, me neither." Sam shifted on the blanket. "Maybe we should..."

"Check the tramp stamps?" Dean finished, turning to look at him. Then without warning him, Dean reached over and lifted Sam's shirt.

"Oh, crap," Dean muttered.

"What?" Sam twisted around, slapping Dean's hand away. "...Oh," he breathed. The two of them just stared at it for a minute. Then Sam let go of his own shirt and reached out and grabbed the back of Dean's.

"Glowing. They're _glowing_ ," Sam said. A pink-red glow, like the kind when you shone a flashlight through your finger. "Pretty sure that wasn't happening before, Dean."

"Dammit," Dean muttered. He didn't want to think about what that probably meant, but he only had one idea, and it wasn't one he liked.

Sam shifted again ‒ Dean wondered why he couldn't just sit still ‒ and it was pretty clear that he had a similar idea, too, only he actually opened his mouth to voice his out loud. "D'you think..." Sam trailed off. "That maybe there's no mojo?" he finished, his voice quieter than when he'd started.

"That it just keeps you completely lucid until you keel over?" Dean snorted. "Yeah, the thought might've just crossed my mind."

"Does that mean that‒ that we, that the two of us‒" Sam stumbled over the sentence in a manner that would've gotten him definitely killed if he was uttering an incantation. Dean didn't blame him, though. Personally, he wasn't feeling particularly keen on words himself at the moment.

"I think it means that the two of us gotta do the whole thing on our own," Dean finally said. "We're not going to get all crazed and lose our minds and start ripping bodices and wake up remembering nothing. It's gotta be us, Sammy."

For a while, there was nothing but the sound of the fire crackling and the cacophony of insects.

"Maybe it's not one of those fuck-or-die things." Sam dredged up a little optimism somewhere, somehow.

"Sam, we looked into those symbols. It's pretty damn clear that's _exactly_ what this is. It's an old sex plague used to wipe out some monks. They touch, it spreads, they don't have sex, and all of the faithful ones drop dead."

Sam sighed. "Wish I'd saved that beer," he said.

"God, I know," Dean agreed. "Wish we had something stronger."

"We should wait on it, though. See if it kicks in when it gets closer to dawn," Sam said.

"Yeah."

Sam got up at one point, and when he returned, he was holding another blanket. The softer, less water-proof one. He unfolded it and pulled it up over his shoulders. Dean grabbed some of the extra length and wrapped it around himself, scooting a little closer to Sam so that both of them could fit under it. The midsummer night was far from cold, but the heat from the fire made the temperature around them feel all lopsided.

"Wanna try and get some sleep?" Sam asked.

Dean snorted. "I wish." He shook off an insect that had landed on his leg. "God, I hate camping."

"It's only for a couple nights, Dean. Tonight, and then one more after that. It's not even supposed to rain."

"I hope after that, these things really do fade," Dean said, glancing around him at the offending spot on his lower back. "I sure as hell don't want a tramp stamp burned on me forever." He frowned. "I think they're glowing brighter, Sam. How many hours have we got?"

Sam checked his watch. "Um, maybe four or five?"

They waited.

"I don't think it's going to kick in, Dean," Sam said, after a couple hours had passed. "I don't feel any different. Do you?"

"Nope. I'm as horny as ever," Dean said. After glimpsing Sam's expression, he added, "Which is to say, not particularly horny."

"Really?" Sam asked. "Could've fooled me."

Dean shrugged. "I mean, I _like_ sex and all, and I know it's supposed to be good for you, so I take it when I can get it, just..." he didn't know how to explain it to Sam. Didn't know how to explain it to _himself_ , for that matter. "There are more important things, y'know?"

"Like staying alive?" Sam asked.

 _Like_ you _staying alive_. "Yeah," Dean said.

"Dean... I think we're going to have to‒ to have sex now," Sam said. "In case it doesn't work. Then we'll have at least a little time to try and figure something else out."

"Alright. Okay." Dean was staring up at the stars in the sky, trying to summon up the energy to find them beautiful.

"So should we, y'know, start on our own? Try and minimize the actual contact between us part?" Sam asked.

"Yeah, probably." Dean ducked out from under the blanket, trying to put some space between the two of them. He turned and faced away from Sam, away from the fire. His hand was shaking as he reached down and unzipped his pants.

It only took a few minutes of Dean's hand stroking his flaccid cock for him to know that this wasn't going to work. He tried to fantasize that he was somewhere else, with some _one_ else, but all he could think about was Sam. Sam having to touch him, having to _be touched_ by Dean.

"Uh, Dean," Sam said from the furthest side of the blanket. "I dunno about you, but for me, this isn't, um, happening."

Dean expelled a frustrated breath. "Me too, Sammy." He tucked himself back into his pants and zipped them up.

"So... what are we going to do, then?" Sam said.

"I don't know."

Sam was quiet for a bit. "Maybe we could start with‒ with something that's not directly sex."

"Like what?" Dean said. The silence he received told him that it wasn't something Sam wanted to spell out, which meant playing a quick guessing game. He thought for a few seconds, then cringed. "Oh. Like making out. Right."

Dean turned back to face the fire. A noise of denim moving against heavy wool suggested that Sam was doing the same.

"We don't have to, if you don't want to," Sam said. Dean didn't look at him. He was pretty sure that Sam wasn't looking at him, either.

"I don't want to do _any_ of this. But we have to, Sammy. We can't spread this thing to anyone else and risk it getting out into the world, and we can't do _nothing_ because that means we're going to die."

Dean looked out over the field, and he thought the horizon already looked considerably lighter than it had half an hour ago. "Sam..." Dean tried to continue, but he couldn't say the rest of it.

"I know," Sam said. "Dean, let's just... close our eyes and try it. We're running out of time."

Still avoiding Sam's eyes, Dean shuffled a little closer. Heard Sam moving, too. Felt the heat of him, the pull on the blanket.

And Dean knew that they couldn't do this if he wouldn't even look at Sam, so he turned his head and forced his eyes up, and then he watched as Sam turned to face him, and once their eyes met and Dean saw how nervous Sam was, how _terrified_ they both were, and that was all it took for the tears to start. Because maybe that demon hadn't even known it, but she had found one surefire way to ruin them both.

There was no going back, after this.

"Dean..." Sam started, his voice breaking. And his eyes were wet, shining bright in the firelight, because he knew it, too.

And that was when Dean leaned over and kissed him.

He felt Sam's lips move against his, adjusting so that the two of them fit together as they never should, and as Dean kissed Sam, the first tear slipped free from his eye and slid down his cheek.

"This isn't going to be alright, is it?" Sam asked, afterwards.

"I dunno, Sammy. Maybe we'll figure it out like we always do," Dean said, putting on a smile that the tear streaks on his face betrayed instantly.

Sam did not flinch when Dean reached out and touched his face, wiping a clear droplet off of his cheek. He just closed his eyes and let Dean pull them together again. Then Sam's hands were coming up, and Dean felt them, large and warm, cupping his face as they kissed, and everything still wasn't going to be okay yet, but maybe it was starting to be.

It took a while before either of them made a move to take it beyond just kissing. Dean thought he could be almost fine with the kissing part, maybe. Because both of them were good at it, and it actually almost felt kind of nice, once the nerves had faded and the tears stopped.

But the fiercely glowing brands on both of their lower backs told them that kissing alone wouldn't do it. So Dean pulled away from Sam for a moment in order to grab the neck of his own shirt and yank it over his head, and without hesitation, Sam did the same. Then they had to look at each other again, and suddenly everything was too real, and all of the fear came coursing straight back.

"So, we're really doing this, huh?" Sam said.

"Guess so." Dean took a breath. "Should we go pants off now or later?"

"How about one thing at a time, okay?" Sam said. "I'm about this close to deciding to just let it kill me as it is."

"You're not going to die, Sam. Not on my watch."

And Sam looked at him, and Dean thought maybe Sam's eyes said _prove it to me_. So he did. Dean's lips found Sam's again, then moved to his neck, his ear. And Dean's hands wandered to Sam's chest, where they paused for a moment, because unlike kissing, this was the part where things got _different_. But Sam's chest was solid and familiar, and Dean knew what felt good on his own body, so he thought he might as well try it on Sam's. So Dean bent down and swiped a tongue over Sam's nipple.

Sam made a noise. It was a small sound, but unmistakably a sexual one, and suddenly, Dean was pretty damn sure that certain parts of his anatomy weren't so disinterested now. Then Sam's mouth was on Dean's neck, and the taste of Sam's sweat was empty on Dean's tongue, and Sam's stubble was brushing against Dean's skin, but instead of feeling scratchy and uncomfortable, it kind of _tingled_.

"Still having problems getting it up, or do you need me to go lower?" Sam murmured into Dean's neck, his voice low and rough.

"Uh," Dean said. It came out more like a moan.

Then Sam's hand was palming Dean's dick through his jeans, and Dean went completely still.

Sam stopped touching him immediately. "Dean, is this alright?" he asked.

Dean shook his head. "No. _Yes_. Sammy‒" he said all at once, desperate.

Then Sam's fingers were on him again, and it felt so good and so bad at the same time. Dean reached out and trailed his fingers down Sam's chest and then paused at the waistband of Sam's jeans, then let his fingers move lower until they were resting on top of Sam's erection. He started to stroke Sam cautiously as Sam did the same thing to him, their mouths moving together because kissing made it easier.

"Uh, pants," Dean said into Sam's mouth.

They twisted around and kicked their jeans off after carefully unzipping them. Sam seemed almost eager to get his hands back on Dean, turning and pulling him into another kiss.

"D'you wanna just ditch the boxers and be done with the foreplay?" Dean asked, breathing hard.

Sam looked at him, his eyes dark, then his hands went to Dean's chest and suddenly Dean was on his back, Sam leaning over him, cast half in shadow and half in firelight. Dean sat up and watched as Sam's fingers hooked into the elastic of Dean's underwear and started to strip it off. Dean arched his hips, and then just like that, he was naked.

"Hang on," Sam said, without really _looking_. Dean sat up. Then Sam was naked, too, and there was a sheen of sweat on his body that glowed soft in the orange light, and Dean was thinking of that instead of the other things. Until Sam was right there, throwing one of his legs over Dean's lap, pushing him back down towards the blanket, and they were kissing.

Sam's cock brushed against Dean's, and Dean shuddered with a jolt of pleasure that flickered through him like fire. Sam gasped, and moved again. Dean closed his eyes, briefly.

Then he opened them and watched Sam's cock move against his between them. The sight was mesmerizing on some levels where it should probably be repulsive, but Dean was past caring about that because it was _Sam's_ cock touching him, and _Sam's_ face hovering over his, and if there was one thing Dean was comfortable about in his life, it was having Sam right there with him.

That was when a droplet hit Dean's chest, warm and cold at the same time.

And Dean looked back up and realized that Sam was crying. Not like both of them had been at the beginning, with just a couple tears beading down their cheeks, this was full-on _crying_.

"Shh, Sammy, it's gonna be okay," Dean said. And he reached up and gently pulled Sam down so that he was laying on top of Dean, his hard cock pressed to Dean's thigh, and just stroked Sam's hair and watched the fire dwindle down beside them.

"Never, y'know, cried during, before" Sam said, his body shaking.

"It happens sometimes," Dean said, trying to reassure him. "I've been with girls that've done it. Maybe it's just a side effect of having mind-blowing sex with me?"

Dean felt Sam roll his eyes where his head rested on Dean's shoulder. "Let's just... finish this and live, okay?" Sam said. His cock slid against Dean's leg as he sat up. Dean shivered again at the feel of it, and then he was reaching between them, and his hand found Sam's cock, the shape of it full and warm in his grasp, and Sam made a sound and thrust into his hand. Dean's hips bucked up into nothing. So he readjusted his hand, and then he held his own dick as well as Sam's, and when Sam thrust again, this time he was thrusting into Dean's cock.

Dean carefully held Sam's gaze the whole time, watching as Sam's tears stopped flowing and his eyes turned soft.

Sam came, first. His cock twitching in Dean's hand, his arms going slightly limp as he held himself up. And that's when Dean started crying. He came with little, choking gasps, and after he finished, he turned his head to the side and closed his eyes.

Sam collapsed mostly on top of him. Dean's body felt entirely spent, and it was exhaustion more than anything else that stopped his tears after a couple minutes.

"Is that it, then?" Dean said, his voice uneven. "'Cause I don't think I'm up for another round."

Sam shifted, and then he was getting off of Dean. He looked over his shoulder. "Well, it's not glowing anymore. Yours?"

Dean tried to turn so that he could sit up and look, but his whole body felt heavy, and he only got as far as rolling onto his side. Sam looked for him, though. "Yours isn't, either. So I guess it counted," Sam said.

Dean flopped back down. "Thank Jesus fucking Christ," he mumbled, taking a shattered breath.

Then Sam was leaning over him again, and for a moment Dean thought that maybe Sam was going to kiss him again, but Sam had a once-white cloth in his hands, stained with oil and blood and God knows what else. Then Sam was carefully rubbing the cloth against Dean's skin, clearing away the sticky mess, and Dean tried to push Sam's hand away, because cleaning them both up had always been _his_ job, but he didn't have the energy.

"We can find a stream to wash off properly tomorrow," Sam muttered.

Something soft touched Dean's feet, and he glanced down and watched as Sam tugged Dean's boxers back on his legs. Just like he'd done when Sam had taken them off, Dean lifted his hips, and the elastic slid back onto his waist. After that, a shirt landed on top of him, and he slipped into it and felt a little bit better, everything seeming a little more _normal_.

He fell asleep within minutes, feeling a blanket drape over him and a body settle beside him before everything faded into a blurry dawn.

When Dean woke, the sun was fully above the horizon, the sky harsh and blue and everything far too bright around him. And hot. His shirt clung to him with a thin layer of sweat.

"Ready to move to the shade?" Sam asked.

Dean grunted, then sat up, kicking off the blanket. He slipped back into his shoes, then helped Sam fold up the softer blanket and shake out the heavier one, carrying it over to the edge of the forest and finding a dense enough clump of trees that the sun could only get through in thin patches of occasional light.

They spread the blanket there, and then Dean crawled back onto it and curled up and was half asleep again in seconds.

When he woke up for real, his watch said it was just past noon.

Sam was stretched out beside him, reading a book. "Hey," Sam said.

"So I take it we're alive," Dean said.

"Yep. Looks like it." Sam turned the page.

Dean licked his lips, feeling a little parched. It occurred to them that the last taste he'd had in his mouth had been the taste of Sam's lips. "What've we got for breakfast?" Dean asked.

"Everything we could scrounge up from the car. Check your bag," Sam motioned to the duffel, where it sat beneath a nearby tree. Dean walked over and unzipped it. "Looks like it's a choice between granola bars, jerky, a few cans of lukewarm beans, chips, mixed nuts, and M&M's." He fished out the jerky and the nuts and walked back over, tossing the nuts to Sam. "We're gonna be hungry tomorrow evening," he said.

"It wasn't worth risking going into a store," Sam said. "At least we have plenty of water."

Dean eyed one of the containers nearby. "Isn't that one full of holy water?" he asked.

Sam looked up. Blinked a couple times. "Might be."

Dean shrugged. "Guess holy water's still water when it comes down to it."

"So," Sam said a couple minutes later, chewing on a handful of nuts while Dean gnawed on a strip of jerky. "What are your plans for the day?"

"There's a cold stream out there with my name on it," Dean said. Sam seemed to be avoiding his eyes, and Dean was okay with that, because the last time they had locked gazes, it had been mid-orgasm. And both of them had been in varying states of crying.

"If you find it, come get me," Sam said. "I want to properly wash my hands. And my clothes."

"Alright," Dean said. He stood up. He was glad that it seemed like the inevitable fallout from everything that had happened the night before would be postponed for awhile. Until at least next evening, if possible. When the two of them weren't confined to this weird, calm exile.

Dean found a nice, wide stream an hour or so later. The water was shallow enough, but not too shallow that Dean was scraping up dirt with every handful. He ran his hands under it for a few minutes, just feeling the drag of the water on his skin. Then he cupped it in his hands and lifted it up to catch flecks of sunlight before he splashed his face with it, trying to wash away the memory impression of Sam's lips on his.

After a fair amount of water soaked his shirt through anyways, Dean decided to just wade out a little ways into the water and wash the rest of him. The air was muggy here, but drier closer to the field, where Sam was.

Dean was still considerably damp when he returned to Sam, but at least he felt less dirty. He flopped down on the blanket after he finished pointing Sam in the direction of the stream.

Sam frowned. "Dude, you're dripping water all over the blanket."

"At least it'll be slightly cooler this way," Dean said. "You'll thank me in the end. I'm already thanking me."

Sam came back from the stream just as wet as Dean, and after checking to make sure his book was out of range, he shook his long hair like a dog, spraying Dean and the blanket with tiny droplets of water.

"How's your mark look?" Sam asked.

"Uh," Dean said. He'd forgotten it was there.

"Mine's fading. At least, I'm pretty sure it is." Sam had a handful of some small, round purple things that he was popping into his mouth intermittently.

"Where'd you get those?" Dean asked, eyeing Sam's hand.

"They're wild blueberries," Sam said. "Found them growing on the way to your stream. Want some?"

Dean made a face. "I don't do berries unless they're cooked in a pie." He opened the M&M's bag instead and reached into it.

Sam stretched his arms over his head, and his shirt rode up, revealing a strip of toned skin. Dean's eyes were on it before he realized where his glance had fallen. He forced himself to look away.

Night fell both sooner and later than Dean had expected, descending with a fleet of thin clouds that didn't threaten rain.

"Do you want to move back up to the hill so that we can see the stars?" Sam asked.

"No."

"Yeah, it's too warm for a fire, anyways," Sam said. Dean understood. He wasn't ready to see Sam's face like that again, framed in a halo of firelight against a backdrop of stars. "I guess we'll call it an early night, then? Since it's too dark to really do anything."

"Sounds good." Dean looked out at the sun setting over the field, fierce and red, setting the grass aflame with golds and oranges.

It was much later when Sam spoke to him again. Dean was lying flat on his back, lumps of dirt beneath the blanket digging into his shoulders and hips through the thick wool as he looked up into the shadowed canopy of leaves and felt more awake than he had in months. He wasn't sure he'd even heard Sam at first, but then he realized he had, and that he should have an answer to give.

"Are we going to be okay, Dean?" Sam had asked.

 _No_ , said Dean's heart, beating sad and lonely in his chest. "Dunno," he said out loud.

"Me neither."

 _I don't want to lose you_ , Dean thought. He said nothing.

"Hey, Dean?" Sam asked, a little later.

"Yeah? Sammy?"

"Stop hogging so much of the blanket." Sam yanked at a section of it. They both wiggled closer together in order to share it better, and Dean had the sudden frivolous idea to just close the distance between them and wrap his arms around Sam and hold him tight enough that there's no way Sam would leave him. No way Sam would ask Dean to pull over the car, then step out and grab his bag and sling it over his shoulder. No way Dean would have to drive away with Sam a fading blot in his rearview mirror.

Dean didn't remember falling asleep. But he remembered waking up.

Because Sam's arms were slung around him. Sam was still asleep, his breathing heavy and even against Dean's chest, against his heart. But he was _warm_ , and he was _there_ , and Dean was in love with him.

And oh. Dean was _in love with him_.

He guessed it made sense, being in love with Sam. He'd _loved_ Sam ever since he knew what "love" was, and probably even before that.

Sam stirred, his arm flexing around Dean, and Dean cut off that train of thought immediately.

"Mornin', Sam," Dean said.

Sam mumbled something, pressed his face closer into Dean, then froze. Dean felt Sam's eyes snap open, his eyelashes sweeping against Dean's skin. Sam scrambled away from him the moment after, and Dean's heart plummeted. "Sorry. I'm‒ I'm sorry, Dean," Sam said.

"Yeah, me too," Dean said, frowning.

"What's your problem?" Sam said. "I thought we'd agreed to not let this mess us up until after we can leave."

"I thought we agreed to try and fix this so that _no one_ has to leave!" Dean said.

"What?" Sam asked.

"I can't lose you, Sam," Dean said. "I can't‒ I can't do this on my own."

"I don't want to leave _you_ , I just want to be able to leave this _forest_ ," Sam said. And Dean's mind fixated on the first part of that sentence, because that meant that Sam _wasn't_ planning on leaving him after all.

"Wait, you're... not disgusted with this?" _With me_ , Dean's mind corrected.

"I mean, I sure as hell didn't expect it would make me fall in love with my own damn brother, but‒" Sam clamped his mouth shut.

"Sammy..." Dean whispered.

"I'm sorry, Dean. I've been trying to stop, but‒"

"You don't need to stop," Dean interrupted. And Sam was looking at him and looking so lost, Dean kind of just wanted to kiss him and take the expression off of his face. "Because I know how we're going to not let this mess us up."

"How?"

"We going to give it a shot."

Sam's look of confusion showed that he was still not getting it, and Dean wasn't someone who was very good with words, so he decided that words weren't doing him any favors at the moment, and skipped to the part that he _was_ good at.

Namely, kissing Sam.

It was different, in the daylight. Sam looked a lot less scared, for one thing. And a lot more hesitant. He started to kiss Dean back, but then his stupid second-guessing brain must've kicked in, because he pulled away. "Dean..." he started.

" I mean it," Dean said. And he finally caught Sam's eye for the first time since the other night.

Dean felt his insides turn gooey. Because women had looked at him like that before, but never anyone who mattered, never _Sam_.

Then Sam just reached out and grabbed Dean's face, and they were kissing again, wrapped up in a blanket and wearing yesterday's clothes, grimy and a little sweaty, sprawled beneath a tree.

"Do you think maybe next time, we could have sex without crying?" Sam said, afterwards.

"Don't know what you're talking about, Sam," Dean said. Then he frowned, remembering why they were here in the first place, and reached over and lifted up the back of Sam's shirt.

"How is it?" Sam asked, not slapping Dean's hand away.

"Still fading. I think it's almost gone," Dean said. "Thank freaking God. No offense, Sammy, but I don't think we're at that point in our relationship where matching tramp stamps are really in order."

"Good," Sam said, not addressing Dean's tramp stamp comment. "After the mark is gone, it shouldn't be transferable to anyone else. We can wait it out until then, and then we can leave and finally have some real food," Sam said.

"Awesome. Running water," Dean said. "Running water that is inside plumbing, and has temperature control," he clarified. "Because I sure ain't putting my mouth on your dick until both of us have had a shower."

Sam's mouth hung open. He closed it, then swallowed, and Dean watched the movement in his throat. "So what are you planning on doing until then?" Sam said.

"Well, for starters, I'm gonna take a nap." Dean lay back down. "Gotta take advantage of having literally nothing else to do, Sammy."

"I brought three books to read," Sam pointed out.

"Then read them. As long as you do it quietly."

Sam sighed, but it sounded more fond than usual, and Dean just kind of smiled and closed his eyes. The blanket beneath them smelled like smoke. Like fire, and stars, and wild grass, and stream water. But beneath that, it smelled like the Impala and it smelled like Sam, and everything else would fade with time, but those two things wouldn't. So Dean rested his cheek against the rough wool and almost let himself think that maybe they actually were going to be alright.


End file.
